A New Year: Rejuvenated

First off, welcome to 2015! It’s been about two months since I last posted here and a lot has happened in that time – I will cover those things individually in the following article. I am rested, rejuvenated, and ready for everything that this year has to offer. This isn’t the prototypical New Year’s Resolution either. This has been building within me for some time now, and I cannot contain it any more. I do have some goals, sure. They are realistic and focused on the things I love and look forward to embracing, not the things I hate and want to rid myself of.

Where to begin?

Fatherhood has been great. Avery is an amazing daughter and growing quicker than I ever thought possible. I heard a lot of my family and friends say that time escapes you once you are a parent. That is a major understatement. She is already walking, saying “dada”, and flirting with every man she sees. She had her first plane rides and was better than most of the adults on the flight. I couldn’t be more proud of her.

Dungeon Crawlers Radio is really ramping up for a great year! I cannot put in to words how excited I am for what we have planned. Our interviews are shaping up to be top-notch again. We are being invited as media and as guest celebrities to the major conventions in Utah – FanX, LTUE, Teen Author BootCamp, FantasyCon, Salt Lake Comic Con, etc.

Unfortunately, we had to ask one of the hosts to step down from the show. It sucked to do, but our momentum will only go as far as the effort being put in to the show, and distractions have been weighing us down for a while.

I look forward to getting our Patreon efforts going – the more money we can generate for the show, the better it will become. We are in serious need of some new equipment and some revenue to start generating merchandise for our fans.

You may notice that the DCR website looks vaguely familiar. I spent a good portion of my Christmas vacation redesigning and getting the site up and running in a stable platform. I know it isn’t great, but I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

Writing slowed and congealed through the late fall and winter months. To be honest, I expected this to happen. The past three months are always my busiest time of year at work, and it really is nonstop during the open enrollment season. I logged over 1100 miles of driving for work in November alone. This is where I am most rejuvenated. Ideas are flowing again. I find myself composing sentences and scenes in my head again. These are good signs for me. I have some new works I want to get started. I have some old pieces I want to make stronger too.

I am also excited to start a new writing-focused RPG with my writing group! The idea came to me after a great conversation with the insanely talented Alan Bahr over at Gallant Knight Games. We were discussing a campaign that he runs with uber-amazing authors like Steven Diamond and Larry Correia (yeah, he is THAT baller). Instead of awarding experience for encounters throughout the adventures, Alan has each of the players write a piece of fiction (based on the game) between sessions – he awards experience based on these pieces just as much as the game. I have asked my writing group if they would be interested in something like this, and they jumped at the idea. So, I am going to run a D&D 5th edition campaign set in my homebrew world, Cildaire, with their characters. There are three people who are going to participate, and only has actually played an RPG. We are going to start slow. We are going to push the game rules into the background at first. We are going to have an insane amount of fun. We are going to write. A lot.

I am a self-identified Collector of Hobbies. Over the holiday break, I have added another one to my repertoire – miniature painting. This isn’t so much a new hobby that I am discovering, as it is a resurgence of a passion that I abandoned twenty years ago. Painting miniatures for Warhammer and other tabletop war games is something that I was really good at. I won a painting competition once. I love it, as it really centers me. It lets me focus on one thing so deeply that I cannot register anything around me. I am excited to pursue this talent again, more for the artistic values than the actual gaming side. I will be making posts on my journey and, if everything goes as planned, will begin taking commission work to paint others’ miniatures. Stay tuned.

There is a lot more that will be coming this year. I have made a commitment to this site. I have made a commitment to my writing. I have made multiple commitments to Dungeon Crawlers Radio. There is enough to go around as long as I can stay motivated.

How about you? What are you looking forward to in 2015? Let me know if the comments. Also, make sure to follow my blog by adding your email in the sidebar.

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1 Response

This all sounds so awesome Drew! The painting of miniatures sounds particularly intriguing. Please make sure you post some pics on the blog of your finished products, I would love to see what these look like!